A Linux User Using ‘Windows 10’ After More than 8 Years – See Comparison

Windows 10 is the newest member of windows NT family of which general availability was made on July 29, 2015. It is the successor of Windows 8.1. Windows 10 is supported on Intel Architecture 32 bit, AMD64 and ARMv7 processors.

Windows 10 and Linux Comparison

As a Linux-user for more than 8 continuous years, I thought to test Windows 10, as it is making a lots of news these days. This article is a breakthrough of my observation. I will be seeing everything from the perspective of a Linux user so you may find it a bit biased towards Linux but with absolutely no false information.

1. I searched Google with the text “download windows 10” and clicked the first link.

2. I was supposed to select a edition from ‘windows 10‘, ‘windows 10 KN‘, ‘windows 10 N‘ and ‘windows 10 single language‘.

Select Windows 10 Edition

For those who want to know details of different editions of Windows 10, here is the brief details of editions.

Windows 10 – Contains everything offered by Microsoft for this OS.

Windows 10N – This edition comes without Media-player.

Windows 10KN – This edition comes without media playing capabilities.

Windows 10 Single Language – Only one Language Pre-installed.

3. I selected the first option ‘Windows 10‘ and clicked ‘Confirm‘. Then I was supposed to select a product language. I choose ‘English‘.

I was provided with Two Download Links. One for 32-bit and other for 64-bit. I clicked 64-bit, as per my architecture.

Download Windows 10

With my download speed (15Mbps), it took me 3 long hours to download it. Unfortunately there were no torrent file to download the OS, which could otherwise have made the overall process smooth. The OS iso image size is 3.8 GB.

I could not find an image of smaller size but again the truth is there don’t exist net-installer image like things for Windows. Also there is no way to calculate hash value after the iso image has been downloaded.

Wonder why so ignorance from windows on such issues. To verify if the iso is downloaded correctly I need to write the image to a disk or to a USB flash drive and then boot my system and keep my finger crossed till the setup is finished.

7. Next was to upgrade (to windows 10 from previous versions of windows) and Install Windows. Don’t know why custom: Windows Install only is suggested as advanced by windows. Anyway I chose to Install windows only.

Select Installation Type

8. Selected the file-system and clicked ‘next’.

Select Install Drive

9. The installer started to copy files, getting files ready for installation, installing features, installing updates and finishing up. It would be better if the installer would have shown verbose output on the action is it taking.

Installing Windows

10. And then windows restarted. They said reboot was needed to continue.

Windows Installation Process

11. And then all I got was the below screen which reads “Getting Ready”. It took 5+ minutes at this point. No idea what was going on. No output.

Windows Getting Ready

12. yet again, it was time to “Enter Product Key”. I clicked “Do this later” and then used expressed settings.

Enter Product Key

Select Express Settings

14. And then three more output screens, where I as a Linuxer expected that the Installer will tell me what it is doing but all in vain.

Loading Windows

Getting Updates

Still Loading Windows

15. And then the installer wanted to know who owns this machine “My organization” or I myself. Chose “I own it” and then next.

Select Organization

16. Installer prompted me to join “Azure Ad” or “Join a domain”, before I can click ‘continue’. I chooses the later option.

Connect Windows

17. The Installer wants me to create an account. So I entered user_name and clicked ‘Next‘, I was expecting an error message that I must enter a password.

Create Account

18. To my surprise Windows didn’t even showed warning/notification that I must create password. Such a negligence. Anyway I got my desktop.

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36 Responses

For the part where you bash Windows for not asking for a password you don’t need a password to have a Windows account, thus, it did not release an error message. Frankly, it seems like you were just finding things to complain about, which normal users would not have even noticed.

There was no need to bash Windows over everything by comparing it to Linux. It’s just a matter of usecase, a particular features might not be useful for you but could be useful for another (type of) user and vice-versa.

Beside I have read about a few nice features which are not present in any of current Linux distros but Windows have it, like multi-touch trackpad with support for gestures, support for 4K display, etc but that side of the coin was ignored completely.

I feel the review could have been a little more unbiased, and the comparison at every single step could have been avoided.

PS: I’m a Linux user myself, the last time I owned a Windows machine was in 2010.

do not get me wrong , i am a big Linux fan and i use it as my primary os of choice.

i strongly disagree ” with all respect” to the sentence “Linux is years ahead of Windows.”

basic functions does not work as it should compared to Mac / Windows , even latest builds for many applications that are cross platforms are not available by default or requires some work to do by the end user or wait for a 6 month spin of a new release to get it up and running.

Hi Avishek Kumar, I agree Linux is way ahead of Windows that is why they are copying certain features from Linux. I love Linux but at work I need to use windows because of Office, Outlook etc. I used Ubuntu 9.04 for 1 year 6 months no hassles until I got a new laptop where I worked at my previous company, anyway I want to move back to Linux (Mint 17.2 or Ubuntu but I need help to get Office, VPN client installed so that I can forget about Windows and only look through it at home lol) I saw an alternative of WINE for Linux called CROSSOVER you have to pay for it . Is there a good tutorial that you can help with for this kind of migration. You help will be much appreciated. If I get this to work then I will convince alot of users to move over to Linux.
Fernando Turner (South Africa)